Setting-fluff terminology? Simple or Unique?

Theo R Cwithin

I cast "Baconstorm!"
That xkcd strip up above is right on.

Personally, I really like the linguistic side of things, too. But imxp, players generally don't get into it that much and find it very distracting and confusing. In fact, I've talked to many people who actively dislike it, and flat out can't finish a novel (for example) with too much of it.

I'll only use a "native" term if it's important: it names an artifact or location, comprises a verbal clue, or the like. I'll occasionally use one in character, but I'll make it really obvious what it means, then revert to the English translation after the first usage.

If the players pick up on it and run with the new lingo, awesome. But I never count on it.
 
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Snoweel

First Post
I'm with pretty much everyone else here. Less is more when it comes to new terminology.

I go as far as outlawing Olde Englishe at the table. The characters aren't speaking Old English or any kind of English in the game world; they're speaking colloquially. So just talk how you talk and we'll assume it's an analog of however your character speaks (which will be colloquially, in whatever fantasy language he/she speaks).

Actually I think Samurai SHOULD be called Knights if the game is played in English.

Yep.

In my game they're called nobles. Katanas are just called 'swords' and they use the stats for bastard swords.
 

Vartan

First Post
In most situations I would agree with the previous responders, but I enjoy designing, running and playing in rich settings, so I'll play devil's advocate. Here are a few questions I would ask before deciding how much "jargon" to put into my setting:

1. What's the return on investment?

Before you spend too much time fleshing out your setting, understand that different players will accept different amounts and types of "set dressing." One player at your table might not care at all, and say "Let's go to the Dwarven country." Another might dig right in, and be able to tell you that his character is the sole descendant of "Lord Masten, founder of Mastinor and the only Dwarf to be declared 'Aulfdar,' a politically loaded title that is comparable to the word 'fuhrer' in German."

So take a look at the composition of your gaming group and figure out where the players lie on a spectrum from "doesn't care about these weird names" to "will compile my setting notes and publish them after I die." This should tell you how much enjoyment your group will get from the work you put in to detailing the setting: don't forget that you're part of the group too, so if designing and running a detailed setting is one of your favorite things about being a DM then factor that in as well. However, you need to make sure you've carefully considered the next question...

2. What's the price of admission for your players?

If you think that you and some of your players will get a lot of use out of unique names for campaign elements, then go for it...but don't do it in such a way that other players at the table are going to be behind the curve because they aren't guzzling your Potion of Immersion. There should be fine details for those who want them, but if one player at the table has no idea that he's addressing the Elven King because you only call him "The Triedel" then you have a problem. You're probably the only person who will ever be able to converse authoritatively on your setting using entirely setting-specific language, so don't get stuck too much in your own creation: you have night vision goggles, but your players only have flashlights.

3. How do you plan to get your information out there?

No matter how much your players love your richly-described fantasy world, none of them are going to read 100 pages worth of Homebrew Gazeteer, and if they did then even the most obsessive of them wouldn't retain enough information to make a difference at the table.

Setting details are best released in small doses, preferably in-game, and reinforced by concise documentation. For instance, tell the group that they've been surrounded by agents of the Eladrin secret police. Let one of the agents say "Nobody escapes the watchful eye of the Scáth Amharc Ar." Then provide a glossary-style entry for them on a campaign wiki or in a campaign notebook that is available to the players. Those players who care will have their characters whisper in the tavern for fear of Scáth Amharc Ar, and those players who don't care will at least know that the Eladrin have a secret police force and that they can't escape its watchful eye.

Postscript

I'm surprised by the general response to this post. The XKCD cartoon is hilarious, but it presents a probability curve, not a hard and fast rule: The Lord of the Rings is an outlier, and we're not talking about books, but an RPG setting, so expectations and qualitative evaluations will vary greatly from group to group and player to player.

The "call a rabbit a smeerp" trope is a very extreme example: I wouldn't advocate renaming the woodland critters of your campaign setting, but naming the Eladrin council adds a layer of creative detail to an important element of the campaign. It's perfectly fine to call Gordon Brown "the dude in charge of England," but he's actually "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom," and if my World of Darkness character ever meets him in-game then I'll role-play him accordingly. The relative importance of the subject should be the designer's criteria when it comes to choosing which elements to rename in their setting.

And lastly, I expect different things from a "Knight" than I do from a "Samurai." They're functionally comparable but each word comes with a plethora of cultural and even practical implications that inform the reader's perception and experience of the subject. To say otherwise is to endorse a view of creative expression that is, at best, unsophisticated.

Good luck with the world design and new game, Chaoszero! It's a lot of work but it can be fun and rewarding. Let us know how it goes.
 

paigeoliver

First Post
Madchen means girl, however it just about means "young girl". So your word means "Young Girl Art", which can be taken to mean something pretty inappropriate.

I just took the words for "art" and "girl" and spiced them together. Is there a shade of nuance to the language that I am missing?
 

Snoweel

First Post
And lastly, I expect different things from a "Knight" than I do from a "Samurai."

The problem is, everybody expects different things from a knight than from a samurai, and whatsmore, the scope of that difference varies from player to player.

Case in point, the Legend of the Five Rings setting. L5R makes clear that Rokugan =/= feudal Japan.

This is a fair and useful distinction, but that didn't stop problems at the table when our expert-on-feudal-Japan realised that he knew less about 'samurai' (as opposed to samurai) than the expert-on-Rokugan. Or the problem of the casual player (who I admit probably shouldn't be playing L5R in the first place) who knew infinitely less than his character about everything, and had to be walked through every session.

I'm finding my current game, where the PCs are from an area based on Rokugan, to have far fewer of these types of problems because I've dropped the pseudo-Japanese terminology. D&D is, after all, about killing things and taking their stuff, as well as the clumsy political intrigues for which our hobby is famous.
 

Glyfair

Explorer
Way too much for the average gamer. A few people really enjoy that level of immersion, and I myself like having a few such words. But having more than a handful, and expecting players to remember or understand them, is simply asking too much of most groups; it turns the game from a fun pastime into homework.

I agree with Ari. I don't want to study a setting bible to be able to function in the world. A few such words are fine, as long as they can be conveyed to the players within the game. Of course, there are other opinions. I have found that most players are within a step or two of my view, though. Discover your groups preferences first.

One other caveat is to watch the words you use. I find that words that sound alien and random tend to be avoided and usually "adjusted." For example, if "Todessuchen" sounded odd to the players, they'd say things like "hey, that dwarf is toad sucking." Avoid things that are going to be either hard to pronounce or hard to remember.
 

Chaoszero

First Post
Madchen means girl, however it just about means "young girl". So your word means "Young Girl Art", which can be taken to mean something pretty inappropriate.

Oh. I thought that might be that case from the previous poster's implication.

If theres anyone fluent in german, please help me not be a pedophile and give me a good german term for what I meant to be "Art Girl" which is basically a dwarven geisha (read: entertainer, not protitute).

This would be one of those times I definitely want a fluff word for this very specific racial profession.
 

Snoweel

First Post
Oh. I thought that might be that case from the previous poster's implication.

If theres anyone fluent in german, please help me not be a pedophile and give me a good german term for what I meant to be "Art Girl" which is basically a dwarven geisha (read: entertainer, not protitute).

This would be one of those times I definitely want a fluff word for this very specific racial profession.

I think 'hookah' or maybe 'hor' sound quite Dwarven. I would suggest 'scanque' but that sounds decidedly Eladrin in tone.
 

LostSoul

Adventurer
The few words of Pashtun(?) gibberish that I added to my Burning Empires game really had an impact.

I guess the point is to avoid overdoing it. A couple words that emphasize the important points work; random crap about stuff that doesn't matter, like the elvish term for bread, not so much.

("Lembas" works in Lord of the Rings because it's so important.)
 


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